


Ashes

by themegalosaurus



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angelic Possession, Angst, Episode: s09e05 Dog Dean Afternoon, Guilty Dean, Guilty Dean Winchester, Hurt Sam, Hurt Sam Winchester, M/M, Season/Series 09, Sexual Content, Trials
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-02
Updated: 2014-07-02
Packaged: 2018-02-07 02:53:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1882362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themegalosaurus/pseuds/themegalosaurus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Since the trials, Dean won't touch Sam, and Sam doesn't know why.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ashes

**Author's Note:**

> Just because of how strange it was to think of Sam being somehow two people at once, and Dean never being sure how much Gadreel was seeing of what went on.

Sam doesn't understand why his brother won't touch him. Ever since he finished the trials and woke up two days later in the passenger seat, Dean treats him like he's all burnt up and the lightest brush of a fingertip might crumble him into dust. Even while Sam was at his sickest it wasn't like this; he might have been coughing and skinny and feverish but Dean would put strong arms around him all the same, holding him close like he was holding him together. Now, though, he catches his brother looking with wary eyes, shifting away from Sam's intended kiss or caress.

"Please, Dean," he says for the hundredth time as his brother's hand slips out from underneath his own. "Please. Did I do something wrong?"

Dean gazes at him with an anguish that he can't compute: an exaggerated misery that's uncomfortably out of proportion with Sam's understanding of the way that things are. It's the inverse of his own situation after the Mystery Spot, when Dean had been suddenly, unbelievably restored with a click of the fingers and a roll of Gabriel's eyes. He'd never told Dean about the missing six months: but they'd made themselves felt in the ratchet-tight hold of his fingers in the days that followed, the bruises blossoming dark on his brother's shoulders and hips. Dean hadn't asked. But Sam knew that he'd felt it, the secret not told teetering them both off balance. Now, again, there's some dark matter hanging between them, acting with the pressure of an unseen hand on the scale. 

Sam doesn't press his brother about those thirty hours he slept, trying to trust that the weight on Dean will dissolve and disperse in time. The problem is, he's not sure how much longer he can last. The comforting certainty of Dean's skin against his own is part of what keeps Sam together, anchoring him in the body he lost for two hundred years in hell. Every day that ends with Dean closed behind his bedroom door leaves Sam floating a little further from himself, his limbs moving uncertain like distant machinery. The depersonalisation starts to impact on his skills, leaving him unusually vulnerable to the claws and the blows of the things they hunt. Sam’s knocked unconscious more often in a few short months than in the previous two years together.

Things come to a bathetic head after the two days Dean spends as a dog. Channelling a canine, his defences seem to go down and he’s more physically affectionate than he’s been since the failed third trial, nuzzling into Sam’s side as they drive and draping heavily over his legs in bed. Thinking wryly of James the witch and his dog-familiar, Sam doesn’t push for anything further: but just the feeling of his brother warm against him is enough to leave him choking with the realisation of how lost he’s been. So when the spell wears off and Dean flinches away from his fingers, Sam can feel his whole self curl and contract in pain. “Dean,” he says, scraped into desperation, “don’t do this to me. Please. I need this to feel alive.”

Saying it out loud helps Sam to recognise what he’s been feeling: like the threads of his muscles were blazed away in the blistering light of the trials. He’d counted on the effects of their cleansing fire but, aborted, they’ve left him just dust and ashes inside. No wonder Dean doesn’t want to be near him: he’s obscene, a half-dead creature wearing its own skin like a shell. 

The realisation fills him with such bleak desperation that before he’s really aware of it the words are out of his mouth. Dean looks at him with abject horror. “Jesus, Sammy. Is that really what you think?”

Sam wants to weep. “I don’t know, I don’t know. Yes. I think so. I’m sorry, Dean. Please.”

Suddenly Dean’s crouched in front of him, hands resting firm on Sam’s knees. He bends his head, looks directly into Sam’s eyes. “Sammy, you’re killing me. Don’t do this. Of course I want you. I just… I think we should wait until you’re really yourself again.” 

Sam really is crying now. “This is it,” he says. “This is me.”

“Oh God,” says Dean – and then there’s a sudden blip of time, a join like the jump in a video loop that’s unevenly stitched together. His brother’s face goes from being drawn and pale and dry to streaked with shining traces of tears that echo Sam’s own. “It’s not fair,” he’s saying, “I can’t.”

“I’m sorry,” Sam says, too shocked and sick to search for the moment he’s lost. “You don’t have to. I can manage. I’m fine.”

There’s a long pause. Then “Fuck it,” says Dean, and his hands are on Sam’s shoulders, pushing him back against the bed. “Just hang in there for me, okay buddy?” he says, and Sam does his best not to lose himself in the sudden onrush of sensation. It’s difficult, with Dean’s teeth against his throat, biting kisses like Sam’s flesh is sweet and delicious instead of the dried out husk it so frequently seems. “Dean,” he gasps and feels rather than hears the murmured, soothing response.

For all that reassurance, Dean seems as desperate as Sam himself, his movements rough and frantic like he’s afraid they will run out of time. Sam, weak with surprise and relief and the thrum of his burnt-out body, lies back and lets his brother take the lead, his nervous system alight with vivid connection for the first time in months. 

Something odd: Dean’s not one for talking much in bed, guttural sounds or clenched demands his habitual limits of speech. Now, though, he keeps up an anxious commentary, a constant call and response breathed against Sam’s skin. “Are you with me, Sammy? This OK? Is this what you want?”

“Yes,” says Sam. “Yes, Dean. It will always be yes to you.”

Dean trembles like Sam’s stepping on his grave.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, I'd love to know what you think.


End file.
